FDL and DailyKos have gone completely mental over HCR

Seriously, I was a Hillary Clinton supporter in the primaries, and I’m starting to feel bad for how disloyal Obama’s “base” has gotten over HCR.? The “Kill the Bill” camp is coming off as nothing more than a spoiled toddler who’s parent isn’t buying the newest toy to come into their field of vision.

Put aside whatever criticisms you may have for the health care bill emerging, but to say it doesn’t help people get access to quality, affordable health care they are currently denied under the system is wrong.? Patently wrong.? Absurdly wrong.

But the only thing more boneheaded than that is the naive notion that we should just “kill the bill” and start over.? Not a single one of them, not Howard Dean, Kos, or FDL, explain how that improves the chances of passing meaningful reform down the road, which is not surprising since none of them have been responsible for the passage of any federal legislation–meaningful or not.

Each one of the impediments to “better” reform that the progressive critics cite as making the current form of health care reform “diluted” will still exist in the future.? Plus, the opponents of health care reform will be further emboldened by their success in killing reform in 1994, 1997 (patient bill of rights), and in 2009.

Obama will be seen as politically weaker meaning that there will be more party-line Republicans in Congress to oppose health care reform and even more Democrats wondering why they should risk their political careers for a group as fickle as DailyKos readers.? Also, keeping Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson happy won’t be enough.? You’ll have to pick up more Republicans, and not just Olympia Snowe.? How’s that going to result in a health care bill that makes Kos and Jane Hamsher happy?? They have no freakin’ clue.

As much as they like to point out the biases of others, they aren’t exactly blameless either.? Let’s face it, the currency of bloggers is credibility and traffic, and once Kos sees his community turn he turns with it.? Because if he or Jane dared to disagree with them, they’re petrified that their traffic will go to some other blogger all to happy to parrot the community, there goes their revenues, book contracts, and appearances on “Hardball.” “The Ed Show”:

Look how Kos fluctuated between the Edwards campaign and the Obama campaign during the primaries.? It’s the same led-by-commenters decision-making going on here.

Want a better bill, then you need to be ready to wait for a better Congress because this is the best bill you’re going to get in the immediate future and tolerate the status quo until then.? Kill it, and you’ve all but guaranteed a Republican victory going into 2010.

Instead, pass the bill, give Obama a major legislative victory that makes it possible for us to have a Congress that will appreciate the expected failings of this bill, if they do actually ever materialize, so that we can build off it.?

There is no way though that killing this bill puts us back at square one instead positioning reform to face a much steeper hill to climb.

For all of my foaming at the mouth ranting on this, even I realize that at some point I'll calm down and get rational again.

I think we need to accept the fact that some people, like me, are going to be really, most sincerely pissed to a fare-thee-well for a while because of how this started with such promise and has ended up being one concession after another.

Add to that the disappointment of knowing that we have a majority and STILL can't manage to decent legislation passed. It's enough to make a preacher swear.

Once we see how this truly shakes out, it may turn out better than if we did nothing. I've been wrong many times before, and a lot of people are saying that the bill is a great step forward. Obama's weekly address on the subject seems to point towards this being something we SHOULD all be behind, but I'm just getting to such a point of cynicism on the whole thing that I'm just going to have to back off and wait and see.